[SPEAKER_01]: Second Timothy chapter three versus one through five, and then we're gonna jump over one chapter to second Timothy chapter four versus one through five, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: They go along so well together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be on the screen if you want to follow that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second Timothy chapter three, verses one through five, it says this, it says, but know this, difficult times will come in the last days.
[SPEAKER_01]: For people will be lovers of self.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, see that right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Lovers of money?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bothful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, they don't want to be reconciled, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The slanders come on, you see a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: People just talking bad about everybody, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Without self-control, brutal, without love, for what is good, traders, reckless, conceded, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: holding to the form of God in this, but denying its power avoid these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we could have heard, we could have heard all of that, and like, yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he adds in there, avoid these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, dang, like, you know, aren't we supposed to love everybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we are, but you better be careful, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You better be careful that you don't get caught up in that kind of group of people right there, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Says, avoid these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now go over to chapter four.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to read verses one through five.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, I solemnly charge you before God in Christ Jesus who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of His appearing and His kingdom proclaim the message.
[SPEAKER_01]: persist in it whether convenient or not, repute, correct, and encourage with great patience in teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the time, we'll come, somebody say that with me, for the time we'll come.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the time we'll come, when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires and multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will turn away from hearing the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as for you, come on, say somebody say, but ask for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now say, but ask for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be serious about everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: In door hardship, do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah, so if you're taking notes this morning, the title of today's message is as for you, as for you, as for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you, Lord, for a fresh importation and revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We receive right now, Lord, what you would speak to us,
[SPEAKER_01]: for this is a crucial time and a crucial season and crucial hour that we are in right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are alerting us, you are awakening us, you are reviving us in this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Lord, let us not have itchy ears in this hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us not be self-seeking and arrogant and prideful and all about us and all those kind of things
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, that we would be people of sound doctrine, that we would be obedient to your Word, that we would follow your still small voice, that we would be able to receive correction and rebuke, but Lord, that we would be able to encourage one another with the truth of who you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you, Lord, for it today, God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus' name, everybody said, amen, glory to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'm gonna try to hurry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been preaching long enough already.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, as what happens when you keep me out for a few weeks, I just, it all stores up, you know, it's like, storing up, storing up so it's gotta still come out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They gotta come out eventually.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, but the book of second Timothy,
[SPEAKER_01]: are the last words of Apostle Paul on chapter 3, Paul was in a Roman prison and he was getting ready to face death row, if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's getting ready to face death.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was really due to the evil and the wicked spirit and the demonic wickedness that had been kind of demonstrated and cast it out in the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a evil king in that hour king, Nero, who called for Paul's death, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So before Paul dies,
[SPEAKER_01]: He is able to write kind of his final words to Timothy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's his spiritual son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's raised Timothy up in the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's taught him kind of a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's raised him up.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like kind of Timothy's right hand man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying Timothy's the one that's going to come after me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to train him up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I go, he's just going to take the torch type thing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Timothy has played a very significant vital role when it comes to Paul.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying that to his spiritual son and he's writing these things to Timothy and really what we can see throughout chapter three and chapter four is we really begin to see Paul's pastoral side.
[SPEAKER_01]: His pastoral nature kind of come out and we see him begin to share his heart and we see him begin to share really his determination and his thoughts as a spiritual leader.
[SPEAKER_01]: in that time and it's later on in second Timothy chapter four that Paul writes after what we read just now he would later write these famous words, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of Paul's kind of farewell speech if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: That I have fought the good fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have finished the race, I finished my race that Christ put before me and I have kept the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, all three of those statements are so powerful and significant, I love the fact that he fought the fight and I love the fact that he finished his race, but the key part is that he kept the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: through all that he endured, through all that he went through, he still chose to keep the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how many times he was imprisoned, no matter how many times he was like shipwrecked at Molten.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of these crazy things that we read about, he still is able to say towards the end of his life before he faces execution to his spiritual son, addressing the church as a whole, I have kept the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've got to know today that what he has started in you, Jesus, he is faithful to finish it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't just start a work in you and then leave you to try to figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: but he is faithful to finish that which he has started.
[SPEAKER_01]: So despite all the Paul's problems and all of his setbacks and his betrayals, his imprisonments, all these things that you could think of at the end of it all, he testifies to his spiritual son and he testifies to the church at the time and the church to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here we are watching and looking at these words and he says, I have finished the fight, I have kept the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen church, one day we will lay down our armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: One day Jesus will come and give us a crown and we will worship the King for all of eternity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So no matter how hard life gets, no matter how tough the season is right now that you're in or how miserable things may be right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would just understand what it means to keep on fighting and to keep the faith and know that there is victory that there is a finish line that there is a crown of glory that is awaiting you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You went through some stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been through some things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been through some trials.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been through some trying situations, some seasons of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe some of you are in it right now where you're just barely trying to keep your head of floats.
[SPEAKER_01]: barely above water.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you've been through some stuff, but if the enemy had his way already, you would already be dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the enemy had his way, you would be so lost.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the enemy had his way, there would be no hope left within you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But praise God, you're still alive, you're still breathing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on somebody, you're here this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a reason to celebrate, you have a reason to lift your hands, you have a reason to shout, you have a reason to praise today, you are not dead, but you are alive and you are keeping the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're still here by his grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that it always hasn't been flowers and candy and peanut butter and jellies.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it, but God has always been good.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's always been good in what He started in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you, He's faithful to finish it for His glory, Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So literally in the middle of Paul's writing to Timothy,
[SPEAKER_01]: He begins to speak prophetically about future events, what we just read in the beginning of chapter three.
[SPEAKER_01]: He begins to prophetically begin to speak on what you will see in upcoming days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he begins writing this in kind of a way of preparation, if you will, for the people of God, to notify them and to show them what's coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: and hear me the prophetic nointing that comes out of any man or any ministry should never be doom and gloom in nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the prophetic nointing should always be that of preparation and hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: We prepare for what is to come and yet we still have a great hope within us.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening to any prophetic voices that are speaking nothing but negative and death and all these kind of things, that's the wrong kind of voice to listen to.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to be listening to voices of preparation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Voices of hope, come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say I recognize what's happening in this hour, but there is a hope of glory that is within us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen to me, this is why you can't put all
[SPEAKER_01]: you can't you can't you can't play all your eggs in a basket for every single prophetic voice or pastoral voice that you hear out there because listen and I've come to understand this with with profits specifically self-appointed profits you don't even know what kind of church they go to you don't even know who their pastor is wait a second do they even have a pastor?
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, we put all of our eggs in the basket, we put all of our faith, all of our trust in words that are being spoken by a man that we have no context of who they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but that word was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that word was spot on.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean it's from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of times people sound annoying to it,
[SPEAKER_01]: they have the anointing and this is what really got us into trouble two weeks ago was when some prophetic voice out of the nation of Africa spoke out loud and said that the last day would be on this earth the last day the very last day would be September
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's either the greatest present of all time or anything else like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so this voice rose up and this man said that God showed him, spoke to him, revealed to him that September 23rd would be the very last day.
[SPEAKER_01]: that God would come back, that the rapture would begin to happen, that God would take his people, all of these kind of things, and He sold it to the whole church and churches nearby, and it reached other nations, and it trickled into the United States.
[SPEAKER_01]: And before you knew it, everybody's starting to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all over Facebook and it's all over Instagram.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all around and people are saying that the last day is the 23rd, get ready, prepare, God's coming back and all of these kind of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting there scratching my head wondering, why are people buying into this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care, I don't care how anointed, how well known, how whoever the person is, I don't care if it's my own pastor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they said that I'd say something's wrong, bro.
[SPEAKER_01]: because the Bible says very clearly that no man knows the day or the hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is not going to ever be revealed to any man upon this earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of a sudden the skies are going to break open and the king of glory is going to come riding on a white horse, hallelujah, and the trumpet is going to sound.
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody going to even know they're going to even be prepared, they're going to even be acknowledging the fact that, oh, I think I knew that someone was about to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the King of glory will come home.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'll welcome us back, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, no man knows the day or the hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I'm trying to demonstrate to you that in these last days and in the days that we're living in right now of what we just read, it said that there would be times like this, where people would rise up and say, oh, this is God's coming back on the 23rd.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not careful, you'll buy into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not careful, you will be deceived.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why He says that in these days, people will have itchy ears.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, they only want to hear what they think is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: What they think is true, what they think is right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they'll totally neglect what the Word of God says because man spoke it, because they're annoying to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're called.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a pastor, they're an evangelist, they're a this, they're that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to be so careful, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: We honor the office of these individuals, a hundred percent, even if they make a mistake, we honor the office.
[SPEAKER_01]: That man, I don't know him, I honor him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He got it way wrong, but I honor him in his office.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I'm going to be really careful in what I choose to believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So hear me, just because someone has a following, doesn't mean you follow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because someone has a following, doesn't mean you follow.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't come to preach a day of that today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't come to preach on what people would look like or be saying in the last days, but what I did come to preach on this morning is this one simple phrase, but as for you, as for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second Timothy chapter four verse five, let's read it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, but as for you, be serious about everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Endure hardship.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, hard times are gonna come, sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just get over the fact right now that you're gonna have to go through some stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go ahead and get over it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna have to go through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Endure hardship.
[SPEAKER_01]: So endure it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna make it through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just saying it's not on about it this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna make it through.
[SPEAKER_01]: You either believe that or you don't, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do the work of an evangelist for Phil your ministry?
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, well, I'm not an evangelist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are all called.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single one of us have a ministry within us.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are all called an evangelist.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not operate in the fivefold ministry as an evangelist, I get that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you are all called.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single one of us are called by what God has told us in the Word of God to preach the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's as simple as that, evangelize.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when it says that, right here he says, do the work of an evangelist for failure ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is coming after all of these things that we just read and that we're gonna see all this kind of stuff and he's saying, but people of God continue to be evangelists, continue to preach the gospel, continue to love on people, continue to share Jesus and just do the work of the ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, don't get caught up in all that other stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: but keep on going after God, and keep on telling everybody you can about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're taking notes this morning, there's two things I want to give you, when it comes to this passage of scripture that we've read, and you know that, I don't need to re-emphasize this, but you know, in this church, we take notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We take notes, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: We gotta remember these things, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing I want to tell you this morning is that we have a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just read about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And second Timothy chapter three, first five, it said that there would be a form of godliness but no power.
[SPEAKER_01]: A form of godliness but no power.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make sure that what I see and what I experience is a form of God with power.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time to sit back and just know of a God and not walk in and experience and be partakers of His power.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to know God and I want to know His power.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there will be people in the times that we are living in now that will have a form of
[SPEAKER_01]: And that word form there is the original Greek word, which is Morphosis, which just means a form or an outline and an outline.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, it's clearly demonstrated like they clearly know what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just outlined before them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're accepting something that's, if you will, just on paper, but they're not fully experiencing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been outlined before them, but they're really not seeing the full demonstration of what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: A form is created with the intent to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I give you a former, if you go to your doctor's office and you're having a doctor's visit and they give you forms to fill out they expect you to fill out the form.
[SPEAKER_01]: The forms intent is to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you following me this morning?
[SPEAKER_01]: The form's original intent is to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when God said in Genesis, let us make man and our likeness and in our image, God was trying to find someone in a visible world to represent an invisible God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in order for that man to have authority and permission in a visible place called Earth, God knew that he had to give man what a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he leaned over and he grabbed the dirt in the ground and the Bible says that he formed man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He formed man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't give birth to man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I saw this crazy thing on this church this week that they were seeing songs and they changed everywhere that said
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, and they believe that God is a woman, and I'm like, anyways, that's a whole other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another form of God in us with no power, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: But he didn't give birth to man.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a matter of fact, he spoke everything into existence, but he didn't speak man to existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't think man into existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says that he formed man into existence, and he breathed upon them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now watch, we don't know what Adams form looked like.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know if he was tall, darken, handsome, you know, if he was short, no, not like me.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he was short, white and stubby like me, you know, had a big belly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know what Adam looked like.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know what his form was like.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we do know is that this, we do know that his form was empty until God took a deep breath and he breathed into the nostrils of Adam.
[SPEAKER_01]: The form became full, as soon as the deposit of breath was put on the inside of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am preaching better than you are responding to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The form was empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Adam was empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: What God formed out of the dirt was absolutely nothing until God filled the form with the breath of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he breathed into the form, that was Adam.
[SPEAKER_01]: He breathed into his nostrils, Adam came to life.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why we must be careful, not to just view others around us just as forms.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a regular old people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the most powerful part about you and I is not about what we can see.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the inner man that the Bible says is being renewed and strengthened day by day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even though our forms, our forms, our physical bodies, they get old, they get weary, the Bible says, our inner man becomes new, and it becomes fresh every day, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's you and I, but now let's go one step deeper, and let's talk about the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because how many of you know that when God created the church, He established a form of the church?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why it says where two or three are gathered in my name, they're I am in the midst of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the church has a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't hate the form, embrace the form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hear me this morning, we need the form, because it is the form of the church that God gave that He desires to fill.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like when you and I got saved, He filled us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He filled us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The church, well, the church has prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The church has worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: The church has teaching of the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: The church has leadership, stewardship, fellowship, discipleship, all of the ships.
[SPEAKER_01]: Evangelism, education, outreach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's what the church has.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we go into this stuff, further it has buildings, it has schedules, it has leaders, it has apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, preachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So while on one hand the church is spiritual, on the other hand the church is very touchable and it has a very tangible form.
[SPEAKER_01]: you and I. We are the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people will call the church, or the form of the church, the physical building, or the aspect of what the church can do, or what they present to people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in all reality, the form that God is trying to create, that is the church is us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some churches will have massive buildings, other forms of churches will be in small storefronts just like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some churches have systems and structures and they don't waver from, they stay right on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other forms of churches allow the Spirit of God to move freely and they follow what the Spirit does and not their system.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's different kinds of forms.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the problem, however, is that Paul said, there will be a day when people have a form of godliness, but have not yet been filled with power.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words,
[SPEAKER_01]: The only way that the church can be a full operation in the form that God designed and designated for us to be in is if we operate in his power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Aside from his power, we're just a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have to have the power of God at full demonstration within the church to be filled in the form that He's created us to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why you can go to a church service, and you can go in, and there's people and everything, and put you, there's just nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not one soul lifting their hand, not one soul crying out to God, it just feels kind of dull and empty and void,
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember one time a few years ago, Melissa and I went to a really large church that's in the area and we were excited to go and we're standing there and worship is going and we're lifting our hands and we're me and Melissa are lifting our hands and we look around and not one other person in the thousands of people that are there have their hands lifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that we were better than or you know, whatever it was that there was no form of power.
[SPEAKER_01]: So form of godliness is certainly was, but there was no power.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing that I want to teach you is that our form is to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a form, but our form is to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: that God forms his intention is always to fill it.
[SPEAKER_01]: God never forms something and expects it to be empty or stay empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: He forms something with the original intent for it to be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the problem isn't that God can form because he can.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem comes when
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you catch that this morning?
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is not that God conform.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that God conform.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem comes when he forms rejects the intended and filling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say this, if you were going to be the form that he created you to be, if you're going to be the church that he intended for you to be, you must not only be formed, but you must be filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem with culture today is that they can't handle the form.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that they can't handle the form and they can't handle what the form is filled with.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that people are like, oh, I can't stand the church because of the church building or the church structure or whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that they can't stand what the church is filled with, the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's the people of the church that's hurt them.
[SPEAKER_01]: or whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Backstab them, or whatever, said I was gonna be there for you and wasn't there for you, all that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so people turn away from the form of the church because they never got to fully see what God intended the form to be filled with.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they look at the outer form of the church, missing the inner.
[SPEAKER_01]: filling of what God has called the church to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't kill Charlie Kirk because he was a white male.
[SPEAKER_01]: They killed Charlie Kirk because of what he was filled with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody understand that, do we get that, do we have a clear understanding about that across the board that he wasn't killed for his looks or his appearance or that he was a certain skin tone or a certain nationality or that he was in a certain state or near a certain group of people or whatever it may be, he was killed because of what he was filled with.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the crossroads that the church is standing in today is not how many people are in the seats the crossroads that we are in is can what I'm filled with be seen and heard is what on the inside of me is it clearly demonstrated can't be seen can't be heard is enough to make demonic forces of evil get so angry that they want to kill my
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you really, do you really believe everything that God has put within you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you really believe who He has called you to be?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you really empowered in all ways and in the field with every good thing that He has put within you enough to be able to voice it and let it be heard?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you scared of people?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you fearful of what others may think?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you scared of what others may say about you and in this and that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why the church is being awakened right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because for so long the church was quiet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, unfortunately, we had to have somebody lose their life for the sake of waking us up all of us up,
[SPEAKER_01]: shouldn't have never been that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should have been making our voices heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should have been standing up for truth, for biblical truth, for biblical principles.
[SPEAKER_01]: The people of God should have been well-loud and established, come on, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus, come on, in all the corners of the earth, as the Bible says, without holding anything back.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what happened is that we all fell asleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we clapped and cheered on the ones that were like Charlie, who were unafraid and unashamed to go on a stage and proclaim Jesus while we stood back and said, good job Charlie, and we allowed one voice to represent an entire nation of people while we sat back and did nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now is the time, but as for you, as for you, as for you, what are you going to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you going to say?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're at the Crossroads right now where you have a choice to make, and you have a choice to make on the behalf of the people of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you truly believed, if we truly believed what we believe in, we would not be scared or shy in this hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we would be rising up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jen got me that Robert and Jen from my birthday, they got me that white freedom shirt when Charlie was killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was wearing that shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, which represents so much, white represents purity and the bloodshed that on his shirt represents the stain of the nail, there's just all kinds of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, there's so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they got through that shirt and I went to the airport and I took a flight out to Ohio.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had people, I won't say any names or anything, but I had people that I know in my life that were saying, don't wear that shirt in public.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be careful, so may might hurt you, so may might say something to you, so may might harm you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, you know, okay, I'll give it a couple days, then, you know, I got the shirt all wear it, but I'll give it a couple days.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the airport, I land in Ohio,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going down this escalator.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not kidding you when I say this.
[SPEAKER_01]: No exaggeration whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_01]: whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time I got from the top to the bottom of the escalator, I passed by five people who had on that white shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, and that's a great thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's a what it stands for and represents and all that kind of thing, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, praise God, this is amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I thought to myself, I'm an idiot.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I should have not listened to everyone else and should have listened to my own self.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I know what I wanted to wear.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what I wanted to represent, you know, passing by hundreds of people and different airports and all this kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And see, that's the whole, that's my whole thing that I'm getting at today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what really provoked even this whole message was going down that escalator.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I made eye contact with this one guy and I'm like, man, love your shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, thanks, bro.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, in that moment when I'm seeing what I could be demonstrating,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm seeing the fact that I am being a form that's not being filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not fulfilling what God called me to do in that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: You say, oh, it's just a t-shirt, Pastor Austin, and now you're going over the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just obedient.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear as it gets.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just obedient.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have done what I knew I wanted to do and what God was telling me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where that thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I would have just partnered up with everybody else in that place that was
[SPEAKER_01]: But I bought the lie of, oh yeah, I might be the only one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, someone might give me a look.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone might flash the unholy finger to me, or something, you know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I quickly realized, like, I can't do that no more.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are a form of Godliness with power.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we're going to demonstrate the power of God upon this earth, we got to demonstrate it in whatever way we can and whatever gets the attention of people in this hour that we're living in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if the shirt says freedom and they're living a life that is bound and going to hell and all that and they read my shirt that says freedom and all of a sudden they're waking them and it alerts them to the truth of Jesus then I just fulfilled what he has called me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what's it got right now is you got a two different kind of churches, two different kind of churches, you got two different kind of preachers and pulpits right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: One that will preach exactly what I'm preaching right now, unassamingly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just going after what the truth and the situation that we're in right now, and burning for revival, burning for a waking, burning for a move of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you'll have the other, the opposite, that won't say nothing about what's happening in the earth right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's disgusting to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have friends of mine, pastor friends of mine, and I said, I refuse to say anything in the pulpit about Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_01]: I refuse to say anything about what's happening right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought to myself, what has gone wrong?
[SPEAKER_01]: What went wrong in you?
[SPEAKER_01]: What changed?
[SPEAKER_01]: What went south?
[SPEAKER_01]: What pushed a button of the wrong direction?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought, oh my God, what am I seeing right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Voice is a people that I love and trust.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting there in the barber shop yesterday, and I'm getting my hair cut.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my barber, he's been cutting my hair for, yeah, almost 15 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome, man, a God.
[SPEAKER_01]: came out of the international House of Prayer Movement in Kansas City and just loves Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's sitting there and he's cutting my hair and he said, man, what's going on in the church right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was on my church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, no, what's going on in the church right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why am I seeing so many pastors not take a stand when they're supposed to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, dude, like I'm preaching about that tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, there's people that I have followed for years that I cannot listen to right now, because the fact that they're just stepping back, being shy, being timid, and he's like, what is going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I told him, I said,
[SPEAKER_01]: number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, I can clearly see what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a religious spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: A religious spirit holding people back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the religious spirit, let me tell you, is one of the most devastating and sickening spirits that you can even think of.
[SPEAKER_01]: The religious spirit will
[SPEAKER_01]: The religious spirit will make you do things that you didn't think you were going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Say things you didn't think you were going to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, because of religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And do you see how religion has messed up culture?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: The religious spirit has infiltrated in churches and infiltrated in the hearts of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get people that see what's going on in the world right now and they say,
[SPEAKER_01]: still want nothing to do with God, that's sickening, devastating, it's hurtful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to have churches in this hour who will stand up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will have to have radical preachers in this day and in this hour that we're living in that are not afraid to share the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: come on somebody who will stand here and unashamedly preach the gospel of Jesus no matter what the cost is come on somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care how they how much they hate me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care how much they talk about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if they make Facebook post about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if they show up and they push hi to blast my name in the middle of a church service tell him
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me that I'm preaching the wrong gospel or whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not going to stop preaching what God is called me to preach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah and I will proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and it will be a form of gallinist with power in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: But ask for you, don't be a form of gallinist with no power.
[SPEAKER_01]: As for you, don't be a voice that's never heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the enemy wants to silence your voice right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemy wants you to hold back right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot afford that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot afford to be silent in this day that we're living in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love when I hear stories like Patricia has shared some amazing stories with us recently about different people that have come into her office and she had scripture on her board or whatever and that just they look at the scripture and it just opens the door for them and for her to share about Jesus and pray for people and all that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean we make it so complicated when it's not, it's easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: All we got to do is be a voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, it's just like John the Baptist of ways in the wilderness, crying out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're in a wilderness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is time that we cry out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if we cry out, let me tell you, people will hear, and they'll come running to you, and they'll come flocking to you, and they'll want to know why you're so happy all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll want to know why you can go through some stuff, but yet still have a smile on your face.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll want to know why you can go through hell, and lose people, and lose this, and lose that, and still show up, and keep on going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they want what you got.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's as simple as that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't voice what you've got, it's a form, it's empty, and it's got no power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't be a light that's never shown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shine your light bright, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shine your light bright.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to today's message.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray you were inspired, challenged, and marked by the word you heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this message blessed you today, we encourage you to subscribe to the Church of the City Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you can find more faith-filled messages to uplift you and help you on your journey of faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information about Church of the City, head on over to www.cotcdfw.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, remember this, the best is yet to come.